Wednesday, December 9, 2015

#JYC2015 Days 1-4

Can you believe that it is already the 9th of December! I'm having a little trouble with the concept myself. The last year...really the last 2 years, if I'm being honest, have been filled with this strange mixture of days that seem to drag on forever and months that hurdle past with hardly a notice. At least in December, I always find time to notice what is going on around me. It's helping that I've taken some time to do a less intense job during the holidays, so that I can enjoy the season and look for something better.

I'm trying to use my Christmas Journal to slow down a little bit, working on it a few minutes here and there after the kids go to bed. The first prompt in Shimelle's JYC class asks you to write a manifesto for the holiday season. The inside cover of the book has a subtle pattern, so I decided to write directly onto that page. My goals for the season are all about spending quality time with friends and family. I think that we are off to a pretty good start so far.

No paper project would be complete without some embellishment. In the top corner is a Maya Road chipboard star that I embossed with glitter zing embossing powder. I'm still not in love with that particular product. The powder has a chalky finish and it makes a strange contrast with the bright green flecks of glitter in it. That being said, I like how the little word art cluster came together.

In the bottom right, I did a little stamping. The snow globe is part of my favorite Christmas stamp set from last year. It has snowflakes, a tree, a snowman, some sentiments, and this little snow globe that the other icons fit neatly into. Unfortunately, the way that I've been storing my stamps (pulling sets apart and organizing individual stamps in the way that I use them) means that I can't remember the brand. It's a lovely set though. I'm also using an American Crafts roller date/phrase stamp throughout the album.

Day 2 and 3 were the the first signs of Christmas approaching and our favorite gifts ever. I've written on this blog about my favorite present ever, so I didn't feel the need to write a lot more. I just included a card with a picture of the Silhouette Portrait and a numbered list of information about it.
I had a little bit more to say about the first signs. I've been doing daily substitute teaching during the holiday season (I was doing long term subbing, which requires all the duties of the regular teacher), so I often have a few minutes during the school day when I can type the journaling about the prompt and email it to myself. That's been nice because I don't have to be sitting in my craft room in front of my journal to get things done.

The two cards at the bottom of the day 3 page are project life cards that I altered. For this one, I stamped the snowman from the stamp set I already mentioned. Then I used a VersaMarker to color in the areas of snow and heat embossed them with white embossing powder.

This card used the snowflakes from the stamp set and a tree embellishment that I printed and cut from Meg Mullens #ThisYear--Christmas digital scrapbooking kit kit.

The fourth day's prompt was all about how we are planning all our holiday fun. I always do some planning, but this was the first year that the girls were old enough that I felt I could predict what we would realistically be able to get done each day. So far, we haven't had to modify plans because of lack of energy. We do have a change for next week, but that's just because we found something more fun than the original plan.

The two key parts of the planning process for this year were my google calendar (which I transcribed into excel to get a printable form because...paper!) and my Christmas village, which is serving as our Advent Calendar this year. Each building in the village is numbered and has the activity we'll be doing that day under it. I just printed a copy of the calendar and cut it up, then put each day under the right building.

I love the little village, so I decided to do a full size picture of it on the right side of the spread.

It's hard to see from the glare, but I put a little embellishment cluster in the bottom right of this card. On Saturday, I had a really successful interview, so I decided to go to PhotoScraps on the way home. It's the last independently owned scrapbooking store in Maryland, but it's a bit far from home. Added bonus: it's attached to a Tuesday Morning. I picked up a few papers from PhotosScraps, and then headed over to Tuesday Morning. I finally got one of those bit pebbles alphabet stamps I've been drooling over for years. I used it to stamp "this year" at the top of the card. I also purchased the Cozy Christmas collection pack by Echo Park. I just love almost everything that Echo Park does, so I picked that up at Tuesday Morning too. The bottom cluster has aqua washi tape to repeat the color from the other two cards, a snowflake sticker from the Cozy Christmas pack, and a little wood veneer star.

So that's my first 4 days of JYC done. I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I've made. Days 5-8 are done, but they still need to be photographed before I can share them. I'll be back to share those another day!